“Apple and Microsoft are throwing down this week, wooing the all-important developer community at competing conferences on opposite ends of the continent,” Michael Hickins writes for The Wall Street Journal. “Starkly different outcomes for CIOs lie in the balance. If Apple maintains its current winning streak, CIOs will have to expend precious resources managing a more heterogeneous and complex IT environment, while an unlikely comeback by Microsoft may allow them to focus on more strategic activities.”
“Apple’s challenge is to retain the fanatical devotion of app developers at its San Francisco conference this week, despite the lack of Steve Jobs’ charismatic leadership, as well as the allure of a much larger Android market,” Hickins writes. “If it succeeds, its rich app ecology plus an improved line of laptops will ensure its presence in the lives of CIOs for the foreseeable future.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, let’s just say that Apple will be able to handle that retention with aplomb.
Hickins writes, “Microsoft, meanwhile, has to convince developers at its Orlando, Florida conference to bet on its new Windows 8 operating system, practically sight unseen. The thinking in Redmond is that consumers will fall in love with Windows 8-powered tablets, giving CIOs the excuse they need to migrate to an all-Windows infrastructure…”
MacDailyNews Take: (Shakes Magic 8-Ball) Outlook not so good:
• ZDNet’s Kingsley-Hughes: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is an awful, horrible, painful design disaster – June 8, 2012
• Analyst meets with big computer maker, finds ‘general lack of enthusiasm’ for Windows 8 – June 8, 2012
• Dvorak: Windows 8 an unmitigated disaster; unusable and annoying; it makes your teeth itch – June 3, 2012
• The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
• More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
Hickins writes, “But without developers to enliven its tablet experience, Microsoft is whistling Dixie, and CIOs should continue planning for life after Windows.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you never went Windows (Mac since ’84 or for as long as you could use a mouse), you’ve been living all along, but, for the unfortunate sufferers, self-inflicted or forced by IT doofuses: Life begins after Windows.